TEMPLE, Texas (KXXV) — "In order for us to do this — it is not an individual who does this," said A.C. Blunt, Director of Love of Christ Food Pantry.
A.C. Blunt is a retired educator, and he has been with the Love of Christ food pantry for 17 years — he started as a volunteer and then moved to director.
"It is a group effort — somebody runs the truck somebody runs the warehouse and the clothing room and stuff, because there is no way one person can do that," Blunt said.
The week starts on Monday, packaging fruits and vegetables — on Tuesday sacks are made, then buggies are put together.
"It has gotten so big here where we used to give out 70 sacks — we gave out 750 sacks last week," Blunt said.
This week makes 33 years the food pantry has given to the community on Wednesday and Thursday, then it’s back to restocking to do it all over again.
Blunt says his favorite part is the people, but he faces a challenge with getting supply to match the demand — the food rescue truck has been in use.
"What that means is, we go get food that people would normally throw away, one being that have more coming in than what they need, or two is running out of date but it's still good food," Blunt said.
The president of Operation Feeding Temple says there is no annual fundraiser goal for the four food pantries they serve, but stand ready to assist.
"Monetary donations go a long way in our pantries and their buying power with the Central Texas food bank," said Derrall Thompson, President, of Operation Feeding Temple.
For June, Love of Christ says they have served 4,233 family members.
"We gave out 106,925 pounds of food."
He says if you do the math, it retails at $446,675.
"You multiply that by 12, you'll get an estimate of how much food we give out," Blunt said.
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